Local News

Click to enlarge Are you a newcomer or not? Depending on who you ask, the answer might surprise you. The topic has been much discussed in Seattle and on the Eastside lately. And among the more popular aspects of the discussion has been how long do you have to live here before you can say you’re from…

Click to enlarge It seems like an inevitable topic of conversations these days: When did Seattle become a city for rich people? We all know about the skyrocketing housing costs that are pricing some folks out of Seattle. But you’ve probably also noticed how all those new apartment buildings — the ones where studios rent for $1,600 —…

Amazon employees fill the sidewalks at lunchtime in the South Lake Union neighborhood. (Photo by Greg Gilbert / The Seattle Times) We’ve got some good news, and some bad news. First the good news: Guys in Seattle are making bank. Data released last week by the Census Bureau show that the median earnings for Seattle men who work full-time increased by $7,000 between 2012…

Click to enlarge Seattle apartment-dwellers: You thought your rent was high — well, you’re right. Data released Thursday by the Census Bureau rank Seattle — for the first time — among the 10 most-expensive cities for renters. To achieve that dubious honor, we had to claw our way past Oakland and Long Beach, Calif., on the list of high-priced places to live. So…

Are “brogammers” the reason the county is getting younger and more male? (Photo: Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times) King County is suddenly looking a little younger. And more male. For more than a decade, the county’s population — like the nation’s — has been steadily aging as the boomer generation edges toward its golden years. But Census Bureau data released today show a…

  The famous billboard from a period when Seattle was losing population, photographed in 1971 (Photo: Greg Gilbert/The Seattle Times) We’ve come a long way from the “Will the last person leaving Seattle –Turn out the lights” era of the 1970s. Last year, Seattle grew faster than any other major American city, according to population estimates released Thursday…

Click to enlarge (Source: Census Bureau, ACS 2010-2012) Is Amazon making it tough for Seattle guys to find a date? Local technology consultant Jeff Reifman published a blog post on Monday contending just that. Reifman posits that male-dominated tech companies like Amazon are drawing a lot more young men than young women to…

Click to enlarge You might call it a “tale of two states.” According to estimates released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, King County enjoyed remarkable population growth for the year ending July 1, 2013, ranking among the top four large counties in the nation for both the rate at which it added new residents and…

Click to enlarge It only took 100 years. Census data show that for the first time since 1910, Seattle is growing faster than its King County suburbs. Nobody could have guessed, back in 1910, that suburban growth would soon outpace the city’s. At that point, Seattle’s population had exploded, nearly tripling over the previous 10 years. But since…

At her inauguration to the Seattle City Council, Kshama Sawant spoke of a divided Seattle — a city of “glittering fortunes” for corporations and the wealthy, but also a city in which the lives of the working poor and unemployed grow increasingly difficult.

Volta, new luxury apartments in Belltown, stands in the shadow of the low-income housing project, Bell Tower. (Photo: Gene Balk/Seattle Times)

Sawant’s speech echoed the “tale of two cities” campaign theme of another newly-elected progressive politician — New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.

While the magnitude of income inequality in New York — and especially Manhattan — is notoriously bad, you don’t hear nearly as much about it in Seattle.  So how do we compare?